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Vatican City, Vatican, 9th November 2004 (CNA) -
Pope John Paul II,
receiving bishops this morning from the Episcopal
Conference of the Indian Ocean (CEDOI), invited
"Christian people to live the just-begun Year of the
Eucharist as an intense time of encounters with Christ,"
and stressed the need for well formed priests and laity,
and the “harmonious development” of families.
The Pope emphasized that an
"authentic spiritual communion" between the bishops is
necessary due to "the diversity of human and religious
situations of your region" and "also the great distances
that separate your dioceses."
CEDOI is composed of one
Islamic republic (the Comoros Islands), two Commonwealth
republics (Seychelles and Mauritius), an overseas French
department which is also an ultra-peripheral region of
Europe (La Reunion) and a French territorial community
(the island of Mayotte).
The Year of the Eucharist,
said the Holy Father, is a time to "discover in this
incomparable treasure that Jesus left us the joy and
goodness of the loving presence of the Savior" and a
time to "rediscover the meaning of Sunday and the need
to make it holy, notably by regular participation in
Sunday Mass."
The Pope called the
formation of future priests "a challenge" for the
Church, and encouraged seminary formators "in their
precious service" of seeing that seminaries "become the
place of a serious discernment of vocations and an
authentic community formation to the ministerial
priesthood."
He urged the bishops to
re-evaluate the pastoral ministry for vocations and to
make it “an essential concern in your dioceses."
He also urged them to care
for the spiritual lives of their priests and to give
them a solid foundation upon which to build, especially
"through assiduous prayer life and the sacraments of the
Eucharist and Penance. ... Be close to them through
welcoming, listening, and shared friendship so they do
not feel isolated or misunderstood."
The Holy Father said that
lay people with "a solid religious formation" will
communicate the Gospel message with their presence and
work in society, "in the presence of other religions and
also with the activity of sects," and encourage other
disciples of Christ to give witness to their faith.
He added that
"inculturation of the Gospel message is a task of great
importance," and said that "for people to progress
peacefully inter-religious dialogue is also a
necessity."
In concluding the Pope said
that "attention to families and to their
harmonious development, is one of your pastoral
priorities," especially because "societal evolutions
today contribute to making family structures fragile."
He urged the bishops to
insist on "the value of marriage and the family in God's
plan," stating that families "are the privileged place
for forming young people and for transmitting moral and
spiritual values. The human and spiritual formation of
young people is urgent in order to respond to the
challenges of witnessing to the Gospel today," he
said.
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